Tag: Recipes

There is something about the colder weather that always has us craving comfort foods. I like to think it is our stomachs reminiscing our Grandmother’s cooking with the holidays, but we joke that cooler weather brings layered clothing aka our focus on eating healthy is is let loose. Recently we tried this chicken pot pie recipe. Preston loves chicken pot pies and lived off them as a child, so when he found this recipe on the cover of Food and Wine Magazine, he knew he had to make it.

Let us warn you: it took a lot longer than anticipated. We started it at 6 pm on a Sunday night and were not done cleaning up until closer to 10 pm. Part of this was a struggle with the dough that we will share. As tasty as the made from scratch crust was, we might use a store bought dough to speed up the process.

Below is the recipe:

Crust:

2 1/2 cups flour

2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup duck fat (this is what we used since we save duck fat) or schmaltz (rendered chicken fat, but hard to find in a grocery store)

1/4 cup + 2 tbsp buttermilk

Filling:

2 lbs skin on, bone in chicken

Dash salt and pepper

1/4 olive oil

6 cups chicken stock or low-sodium broth

1/2 stick unsalted butter

1 medium onion, diced

1 large carrot, diced

1 celery, diced

3 garlic closed, minced

1/4 cup flour

1 1/4 cup whole milk

1/4 minced fresh parsley

2 tbsp minced chives

2 tsp minced thyme

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 large egg (beaten with 1 tbsp of water)

Directions:

First, make the crust. blend everything in a food processor, starting with the flour, sugar, and salt. Roll out the dough into a 12 inch round, 1/4 inch thick piece of dough. Then ease it into the pan. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line the crust with parchment paper and fill with pie weights or dried beans to keep the crust against the pan. Bake for 20 minutes until golden brown and let cool.

Make the filling by seasoning the chicken with salt and pepper, cook the chicken until fully cooked and browned. In this case, we used leftover homemade roasted chicken. Then add the chicken stock and boil. Let the chicken cool while you caramelize the carrots, celery, shallots, garlic, and onions in a saucepan with butter and oil. Once cooked, add the chicken to the saucepan. Gradually stir in the milk and reduced chicken stock. Once thickened, stir in the parsley, chives, thyme, vinegar and season with salt and pepper. Cool for 30 minutes.

Roll out the remaining half of the dough to make the top crust. Once rolled out, place the filling into the bottom of the pie pan over the base crust. Then place the top of the crust over the pot pie. Brust the crust with the egg wash and cut slits into the top to vent steam while cooking. Bake the potpie for 40 minutes until the crust is brown and the filling is bubbling. Let cool before serving.

Want a fun new recipe to spice up steak night? We love this one because it can be used as a sauch for leaner meats or on potatoes. I personally love it and {warning this sounds crazy} I dip popcorn in it the next day as a snack.

Chimichurri Sauce – (Makes about 1 cup of sauce)

What you need:

2 tablespoons of Fresh Oregano

1 tablespoon of Crush Red Pepper

3 teaspoons of Red Wine Vineger

1/2 of Olive Oil

1 Cup of Parsley

4 Cloves of Garlic

Process:

This one is VERY simple. Simply put all the ingrediance into a food processor (We use a Vitamix) and pulse. You don’t want the consinsency to be too liquidy, so try to pulse it until you its smooth, but not liquid.

Steak

What you need:

A Flank, Skirt or Flat Iron Steak works best for Chimicurri

Process:

Simply Pan sear or Grill the meat. Since you will be putting Chimicurri sauce on it, no need to get fancy with the seasoning. Just Salt and Pepper, thats all you will need. Anything more, and it will be too much.

I set the pan to medium-high heat with a splash of olive oil in the pan

Since these are thin peices of meat, just a few mimutes on each side. No need to finish in the oven or anything like that.

Remember to let the meat rest for about 10 minutes under aluminum foil. This lets the fats find its way back into the meat, and not all over your plate after cutting into it.

When Steak is complete, slice the steak into thin slices and pour chimichurri over the meat. Then viola, you have a fantastic dinner.

We like to pair this with oven roasted potatos and veggies. This night we chose broccolini.

What are you cooking on a Wednesday night? Preston whipped up a homemade pesto sauce! It was so good that I had to share it. Below are some photos to give you an idea of how amazing it was. Disclaimer, the actual noodles were not homemade, but we have made it before-Preston always has to try to make it homemade, but sometimes he decides store bought tastes good enough to save the time making it from scratch.

Forgive me, these are from my awesome iPhone 5. Still rockin the old school phone. I have always wanted to get better at photography and will eventually purchase a “real camera” instead of resorting to iPhone pics. Preston works so quickly that I have to snap them when I can!

To make this recipe you need: fresh basil leaves, pine nuts, olive oil, parmesan cheese, chicken breast, noodles (your choice we switch between linguine and rigatoni) salt to taste. I always recommend pairing it with a glass of wine, but it is not required for the recipe 🙂

Pesto Sauce:

Two tablespoons of Pine Nuts

3 Garlic cloves (we love garlic)

2 cups of basil leaves aka two handfuls

1/2 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup of Olive Oil

Pinch of Salt

Pasta:

2 servings of Noodles: Linguine or Rigatoni

2 Chicken Breasts

Blend all of the above until smooth. Afterwards boil pasta until “al dente” or to your liking. We honestly make more pasta than a traditional serving, so it is personal. A traditional serving of long pasta like linguine and spaghetti is supposed to be the size of a quarter when bunched up in your hand (or 2 ounces).

After blending the pesto and while pasta is boiling start cooking the chicken. Preston recommends to salt and pepper the chicken and place olive oil in the pan before cooking. He wanted limited seasoning to have the flavor come through in the pesto instead. A trick in cooking chicken is once it is white halfway through the chicken breast, it is time to flip it over! Preston diced the chicken and let it cool on a cutting board while he tossed the cooking pasta in the pesto sauce. He then added the diced chicken to the pesto coated pasta in the pan before seperating it into each serving.

Once on the plate, he addes another sprinkle of pine of pinenuts and more parmesean as a garnish. Voila! Bon appetite.